The Role of Soil Scientists in
Implementing the New Farm Bill

Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief
Natural Resources Conservation Service
at the Orientation for New Soil State Scientists
Washington, DC

July 23, 2002

Good Morning. Congratulations to each of you on becoming our newest group of State soil scientists. This is an important career move for each of you, and it is important for the Agency to have people like you who are ready to fill these positions.

Your agenda this week looks almost as ambitious as the agenda for my first week as Chief. By the time you get done, you should know everything you need to know about strategic planning, budgeting, operation management, accountability, legislative affairs, and many other topics.

Actually, it took me two weeks to learn all that. But this week is a good start for you.

Historically, soil scientist positions have been very important in NRCS, and that will continue to be the case. As State Soil Scientists, you will be facing many challenges, all of which are important to the successful implementation of the new farm bill. We will be getting more conservation done on the land – lots more. So, it is more important than ever that we have good data available to us and to our customers.

It is especially important that we complete the basic soil survey. Our soil data simply must be kept up to date. Not only must it be up to date, but it must be readily accessible – which in today’s world means electronically accessible. Not only is electronic accessibility becoming more and more of an expectation of our partners and customers, it is also a major part of the administration’s e-government initiative, and a major goal of our Agency.

Because of the new farm bill, we will be using a lot of outside help – third-party vendors, and others – to help us get the job done. These people also need access to the latest data. It is important that we get our information out electronically, and all of you play an important role in the effort to digitize our soil survey data and make it available. Today’s soil scientists need to be both field savvy and database savvy to assist soil conservationists with farm bill implementation and customer service toolkit implementation.

I know many of you are interested in the future of the soil science profession at NRCS. Let me assure you, that future is bright. All of the retirements coming up create a challenge for the Agency. We must attract bright new soil scientists. We must train our present staff and prepare them to move up in the organization. We must have a steady supply of new soil scientists into the soil survey program, so that we can maintain our ability to provide the best soil survey information in the world.

We already have started filling in the gaps in our field office structure – gaps caused by retirements and normal workforce turnover. In addition, we recently have started hiring under the USDA Career Intern Program. This program allows us to hire entry-level professional and technical employees without advertisement. Right now, we are the only USDA agency using this authority. Hiring these Career Interns also will help us in the long run, because we can convert them to permanent status after 2 years. We already have hired about 50 employees under this authority.

Soil scientist positions are critical to the success of the Agency, particularly with the increased emphasis on conservation in the new farm bill. We need all the soil scientists we have now, and more,

* To support our field conservation operations.
* To maintain and upgrade soil survey databases, digital products, and soil interpretations,
* To help people understand and use soil survey data appropriately.
* To develop and maintain field office technical guides,
* To carry out educational activities, and
* To perform survey maintenance and update work.

At the same time, farm bill implementation will create a lot of work for soil conservationists, other resource professionals, and almost any NRCS profession you can think of. To get our farm bill work done, we will have to work through our partners and third-party vendors. We have plenty to do, within the Agency, and we need all the outside help we can get.

If we do not make full use of third-party vendors, too much of your work time will get siphoned off for technical soil services work when you should be focusing on soil science work, such as maintaining our soil survey program capacity. We cannot and will not allow that to happen. Your work as soil scientists is simply too important to our success as an agency.

Good luck in your new positions. Now, I would be happy to answer any questions.